On Wednesday, the Obama administration launched a new blistering attack on Israel. Reacting to the approval of 800 new housing units for Jews and 600 for Arab residents in the Jerusalem area, the State Department accused Israel of systematically seizing “Palestinian land.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the administration has strong doubts about Israel’s commitment to peace after the announcement of the building plan.

“If it is true, this report would be the latest step in what seems to be the systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions and legalization of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution. We oppose steps like these, which we believe are counterproductive to the cause of peace,” Kirby said, adding that the administration is “deeply concerned” about the Israeli building plans.

“These actions risk entrenching a one-state reality and raise serious questions about Israel’s long-term intentions,” he said, referring to a new report by the Quartet for Mideast Peace that criticized Israeli settlement building but also took the Palestinian Authority to task over the continuing incitement against Jews and Israel.

Apparently, Kirby based his statement on inciting and incorrect information he received from the Palestinian side because no outpost will be legalized under the new building plan and no settlement will be expanded outside existing zone plans. Furthermore, the announcement of the plan was, in fact, phase two in a long procedure that started in 2012 when a planning committee approved the proposal.

The accusation that there is “a systematic process of land seizures” is also based on false information. Most “settlement” building takes place within the existing boundaries of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (the so-called West Bank).

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The plan doesn’t involve land expropriation, and the only construction plan that is scheduled to be executed outside an existing neighborhood is the building of 600 units for Arabs in Givat Hamatos near the existing Arab neighborhood Beit Safafa and the Jewish neighborhood Gilo in southern Jerusalem.

In fact, the only building activity that somehow could undermine the prospects for a two-state solution is the expansion of Ma’aleh Adumim in the direction of the Dead Sea, but that is not what is at stake. Kirby’s assumption must have been based on propaganda from the Palestinian Authority that has for long claimed that building in this area threatens the contiguity of a future Palestinian state.

That, however, was exposed as a lie by the U.S.-based media watchdog organization Camera, which in 2005 published a map showing that north-south contiguity of a Palestinian state would be guaranteed under any new building plan in Ma’aleh Adumim.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu responded to the Obama administration’s latest attack on Israel by pointing out that a few houses in Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem do not prevent peace from happening, but Palestinian incitement and terror do.

“Continuous incitement against the existence of Israel on any borders” is the reason there is no peace, the prime minister said, adding that “it is time that the nations of the world recognize that simple truth.”

“The time has come for the world to recognize it. The way to peace is through negotiations. We are willing to have direct negotiations, they are not willing to. That is preventing peace, not a few houses in Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim,” Netanyahu said in Rwanda while on an official state visit.

As for the two-state solution, the Obama administration could be right that the prospects for a two-state-solution are fading, but not because of “settlement building.”

The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday that a majority of Israelis no longer think Israel should withdraw from Judea and Samaria.

The June Peace Index survey, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, revealed that 55 percent of Israelis want Israeli control over the so-called West Bank to continue. A larger majority of Israeli Jews and Arabs think a referendum should decide the future of the territories that were captured during the 1967 Six Day War.

“In regards to the future of the territories, 59% of Jews and 73% of Arabs would favor holding a referendum to leave the territories, should a draft of a peace agreement be reached that is acceptable to the Israeli government,” the Post reported.

Roughly one-third of the Israeli population now says that Israel should annex Judea and Samaria.

The findings of the poll expose a growing trend in Israeli society.

A majority of the Israelis have internalized the shocking events taking place in other Middle Eastern countries and noticed the influence of Islamist movements such as ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra on the Palestinian street and leadership.

It is no coincidence that the current Palestinian uprising is fought with ISIS-styled weapons. The three terrorists who carried out the shooting in Tel Aviv one month ago were strongly influenced by the Islamic State, the Israeli security service Shin Beth said after their arrest.

The results of the new survey echo the concerns of the Israeli government about the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israel has always warned that a Palestinian state based on the 1948 armistice lines (the so-called Green Line) is tantamount to suicide because it would leave Israel with a north-south contiguity of fewer than 12 miles in the area of the coastal city of Netanya.

The coalition agreement of the current Israeli government has thus no mention of the two-state-solution but instead states that any peace agreement “must be brought to the Cabinet and the Knesset for approval, and if necessary, for a national referendum as well.”